Ground Zero developer Larry Silverstein launched a counter-attack on City Hall yesterday, vowing that he’ll never walk away from the World Trade Center site before he has replaced all of the office space destroyed on 9/11.
Silverstein, who was at a public event with Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki, rebutted the mayor’s charge that he doesn’t have the money to finish the project and would abandon a partially built trade center while pocketing a $500 million profit.
“That’s totally inaccurate, totally inaccurate,” Silverstein bristled when asked about City Hall’s bleak financial analysis released earlier this week. “I think I’ve said as much as I’m going to say.”
But Silverstein did go on to say he’s “committed” to an agreement signed with the city, state and Port Authority to rebuild all the office space. “We all executed agreements that specify exactly what would be done on that site,” he said.
Pataki, who controls redevelopment at Ground Zero, gave Silverstein a vote of confidence, saying, “We’ve made very real and significant progress with our private partner, and that’s Larry Silverstein.”
Bloomberg, who sat a few feet away from Silverstein during an announcement at NYU Medical Center, conceded that the city may not have the legal right to force Silverstein out or to change the development plan.
“There may not be any legal way to do certain things that the city would like to get done or the state or the Port Authority,” Bloomberg said. “We all have to work together.”
Bloomberg has called for the Port Authority to bounce Silverstein from two of the five office tower sites at the WTC and to switch one of the buildings into a mixture of retail, hotel and housing that he says is in greater demand.
The mayor’s plan would reduce office space by about 7 percent and would put 700 apartments at Ground Zero.
Earlier in the day, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff kept up the heat on Silverstein, accusing the developer of dragging his feet at Ground Zero. He said two key towers on Church Street aren’t slated to be done until 2015 and 2016.
“To wait for 15 years after Sept. 11 for that to happen is completely unacceptable,” Doctoroff said.
Silverstein yesterday insisted he would begin work on the buildings as soon as the Port Authority readies the sites in mid-2008, and it would take him three to four years to build.
Doctoroff insisted that Silverstein doesn’t have the financial resources to finish the job at a time when rents for office space downtown are low.
Silverstein, however, released his own projections to counter what his advisers called “outright wrong statements from city officials over the past weeks.”
Additional reporting by David Seifman
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Twin Powers
Behind the Mayor Bloomberg-Larry Silverstein feud:
* Bloomberg wants Silverstein (right) to give up two of the five WTC tower sites, one for Port Authority HQ, and says the developer can’t afford to finish the job.
* Silverstein wants to replace all of the 10 million square feet of office space that were lost on 9/11.